Adventures in Newcastle: Tea Sutra and other stories

This post has been waiting over a month, and at the time of posting, I've been on Easter/Spring break for a week and a half, but I'm actually doing lots of coursework, so forgive how long this post has taken.  I promise there'll be another new post on Friday (as in in two days time).  I suppose it's good that I have left this post until now though because I have slightly more time for writing the more descriptive posts like this one (even though I did plenty of that in the days leading up to Back to the 80s, the review for which you can read here and see photos of here).  Over the Valentines weekend, I headed up to Newcastle for one day for my best friend Haaris' 21st birthday celebrations.  I didn't manage to visit that many places, so I might have to update this post after any future Newcastle visits that I have.

Dinner

Introducing the new Pianta pizza! It’s cheese free so this is our first pizza that is suitable for vegans. pic.twitter.com/BCBOrx1UtP

— PizzaExpress (@PizzaExpress) March 25, 2014

We had our dinner at Pizza Express, where I had the Pianta pizza, which is the only fully vegan-friendly pizza on their menu (although if you take your own vegan cheese, they can use it to adjust any of the vegetarian pizzas as their pizza bases are ALL dairy and egg-free) and is topped with chestnut mushrooms, pine kernels, artichokes, chilli flakes, spinach and copious amounts of rocket salad.  The chilli flakes are unfortunately a huge weakness of mine, which results in me needing tissues to wipe my nose after every couple of mouthfuls of pizza as I am terrible at dealing with hot/spicy foods.  We were also given complimentary chocolate love hearts for Valentine's Day!

Fun

Posted by Lost & Escape on Monday, 15 February 2016

A few more of Haaris' friends then joined us (only one of them was there for dinner) for a game at Lost and Escape!  We split into two teams (one with four of us, and the other with five) to take on a game each - my team entered the Lost game while the other team went into the Escape dungeon.  In Lost, we started in a room where we had to solve a series of puzzles to open cupboards and padlocks on boxes, before entering the next room to climb through a laser maze (where if you touch the laser beam with any part of your body, an alarm goes off and you have to start from the beginning of the laser maze again), before finishing in a third room with more puzzles that eventually led to the treasure chest (pictured above).  We had an hour to complete the whole game, and we had entered the final room with approximately 35 minutes to spare, but we were then confused by some of the clues in the final room and didn't realise that one of the puzzle boxes had a second secret opening that contained an important clue.  We eventually only finished the game with about 5 minutes to spare.  We were meant to see some comedy at The Stand after this, but tickets had sold out and I was actually quite tired anyway, so we were back at Haaris' student house by 9:15pm and I spent the next 3 hours mostly asleep.

Lunch at Tea Sutra

While looking through my cousin's girlfriend's Instagram pictures several months ago, my eyes were drawn to a photograph of a teapot, a timer, a teacup and sieve, two slices of cake, and an elephant-shaped teapot (let's face it, the elephant drew me in).  Amongst the tags was #vegan, so my interest immediately peaked and I looked up Tea Sutra (another of the tags) to find it was in Newcastle.  I found that one of Haaris' friends, Saffron, has also visited Tea Sutra, so I messaged them in advance to ask for their recommendations of what to eat.  Saffron's recommendations were Lapsang Souchong or Blossoming tea, the Mediterranean veg wrap, and the lemon and earl grey cake.

The teapot, sieve and timer

For tea, I had Lapsang Souchong as per one of Saffron's recommendations.  It came in a teapot with a cup, sieve, and a 5 minute timer.  This means that I had to wait for 5 minutes after adding the hot water to the teapot for the tea to brew before I could pour it into my cup to drink.  It was quite hot, but also very nice and soothing and I got even more tea because Haaris had ordered the same but then found that he didn't like it and offered it to me.

Warm Lapsang Souchong tea

For my main course, I went against Saffron's recommendation of the Mediterranean veg wrap (mainly because I was overwhelmed by choices) and instead opted for the falafel and mango chutney wrap with salad.  I'm not sure if I'd ever eaten falafel before, but it had a nice, soft texture which went well with the sweet mango chutney.

Falafel and Mango Chutney wrap with salad and crisps

For my dessert, I really couldn't decide what to eat out of the two choices available, so I figured that I should really make the most of being there as I probably won't be eating at Tea Sutra again for a while (because I'll be taken to other places if/when I'm next staying in Newcastle, including one of the cat cafés), and ate a slice of both cakes.  The first, the Earl Grey and Lemon cake, was my favourite and also recommended by Saffron, as it had sultanas sprinkled on the top as well as a nice lemon taste in the icing.  The second was a banana and chocolate cake which Haaris also had a slice of, and had little chocolate chips and dots of chocolate frosting.

Earl Grey and Lemon cake

Banana and Chocolate cake

Falafel and Mango Chutney Wrap

This recipe is supposed to be inspired by the falafel and mango chutney wrap that I ate at Tea Sutra, and involves this falafel recipe from about.com.

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

One 16oz can of chickpeas.
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons flour
pepper
salt
oil for frying
3 tortilla wraps
mango chutney

Instructions

1. Drain chickpeas, place in pan with fresh water and bring to a boil.
2. Allow to boil for 5 minutes, then simmer on a low setting for about an hour.
3. Drain and allow to cool for 15 minutes.
4. Combine chickpeas, garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper (to taste) in a medium bowl.  Add flour.
5. Mash the chickpeas, making sure to mix the ingredients together, or combine the ingredients with a food processor to form a thick paste.
6. Roll the mixture into balls and flatten slightly.
7. Fry in 2 inches of oil at 350 degrees until golden brown (5-7 minutes). Leave to cool slightly.
8. Place 2 teaspoons of mango chutney into the centre of each tortilla wrap and spread around the surface of the wrap.
9. Place falafel balls along the centre of the wrap and roll to serve.
10. Serve with salad.

Ginger and Coriander Tea

For half of this past week, I was stressing about a presentation for my final production project.  I've always been nervous about presentations, but whereas previous presentations that I've done at university have been for projects that I have done during that past semester and a demonstration of what's in the website and how it works, this presentation was a pitch to a class of about 21 for a website that I was proposing to make as part of a group for our final projects.  In the past couple of weeks, I've also been worrying quite a lot that my web design skills are not sufficient and that I'm not getting enough good grades.  The former may be helped via a series of tutorials on YouTube that one of my coursemates has now suggested, and the latter has now been helped by an unexpected good grade on a project I'd thought I'd done really badly in.  During the presentation itself, I was very nervous and my prepared speech did not line up very well with the detailed Powerpoint presentation I'd produced, but one of the others said that I'd had plenty of information in the presentation.  To recover afterwards, I went to Elina's for lunch (some very nice tomato pasta) and curled up for a bit.  On Thursday, I was then placed into a group to create a website called Brass Band Live, which will be a hub of resources, news, interviews, reviews, etc. for brass bands around the country.  My homework for the weekend is to learn how to use the Bootstrap framework, watch lots of tutorials on YouTube, and make a draft visual design template for the front-end of the website.

At BUSOM this week, I continued to try to sort out costumes on Tuesday and extracted a few items from the society's costume boxes, including two Muse skirts used in Little Shop of Horrors (main show, March 2014) and a pair of sunglasses with sideburns used in The Rocky Horror Show (24 hour show, October 2014), and acted as a stand-in on Thursday during the acting rehearsal.  The scene where I cameo as a "Minion" (no, not the annoying yellow thing), who acts as a computer mouse/cursor and moves characters around the stage during a dream sequence, was in the scenes rehearsed last night, but I'll only be learning my choreography for this when another song is learned.

At Archery yesterday, I learned from Owen that because I'm using a lower poundage bow (18lb 66in), I need to aim higher when shooting.  Normally, a lot of my arrows end up going under the target and onto the floor, but after this tip, a lot more of them hit the target yesterday, and I even scored a 3, 5 and 8 in one end!  However, I also need to learn to bend my arm more and move my armguard higher up my arm because the bowstring slapped my arm a couple of times and I now have a couple of bruises on my left arm.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Anna's birthday party which is a tea and craft party at another friend's house (the friend whose birthday it is has already graduated and lives in another town).  We've been told to bring a cup, a teapot if we can (so we can have several different teas going around the group), a type of tea, and a craft to do.  If there's the space available in the kitchen, I'm thinking of making this super-simple tea recipe that I found in Hidden Kitchens of Sri Lanka by Australia-based Bree Hutchins, a freelance travel and food photographer who travelled around Sri Lanka for 2 months in 2013 and took up residence in many Sri Lankan locals' kitchens to learn recipes from them and about their individual cultures and traditions.  Later this year, I'll be discussing Sri Lanka more and finding more curry recipes, but this is the only one for now.  This tea is said to have health benefits, including as treatment for colds.

Ingredients (serves 4)

50g (1.75 oz/heaped 1/2 cup) coriander seeds, washed
40g (1.5 oz) piece ginger, roughly sliced
sugar, to taste

Instructions

1. Mix together the coriander seeds and ginger in a saucepan with 1 litre (35 fl oz/4 cups) water.
2. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
3. Strain and add sugar to taste, stir well and serve.

Moroccan Mint Tea

On Wednesday afternoon this week, the Cycling 4 All team at university teamed up with local businesses and a few groups within the university itself to deliver the Food Festival, a 3 hour lunch to celebrate food, Fairtrade fortnight, locally-sourced products, and home-grown foods.  There was a banana cake baking competition, the Sustrans smoothie bike, Jamie's Ministry of Food, and other stalls, as well as a quiz where you had to guess which items could be Fairtrade and which could not.  Did you know that you can have Fairtrade gold?  I found a recipe card for the following Moroccan mint tea at a stall for Food on Campus, which is an initiative run by the university to encourage students and staff to plant, grow and harvest their own fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Ingredients (to serve 6)

10 sprigs fresh mint, plus extra to decorate
3 teaspoons green tea
3 tablespoons sugar (or more to taste)
4 cups water

Instructions

1. Boil the water and pour a small amount in the teapot, swishing it around to warm the pot.
2. Combine the mint and green tea and sugar in the teapot, then fill it with the rest of the hot water.
3. Let the tea brew for three minutes.
4. Set out glasses for the tea, preferable tumblers to match the style of the glasses used in Morocco.
5. Fill just one glass with the tea, then pour it back into the pot.  Repeat this action to help to dissolve the tea and distribute the sugar.
6. Pour the tea.  Aim to have a foam on the surface of the tea by pouring with the teapot a high distance above the glasses.  If you do not have at least a little foam on the top of the first glass, then pour it back into the teapot and try again until the tea starts to foam up nicely.
7. Decorate with the remaining sprigs of mint.